Waugh Thistleton Architects launch '100 Projects UK CLT' book

The one hundred projects featured in the book were selected from over 500 completed CLT projects in the UK.

"Over the last 15 years the UK has experienced a quiet revolution in construction," write the authors. "Since the modest efforts of the first small buildings in the early 2000s a blossoming array of CLT projects has emerged across a range of building types and scales. In 2017, three out of the five buildings nominated for the Stirling Prize, the UK’s top architecture award, were constructed from CLT. Engineered timber buildings are now firmly part of our construction landscape."

"This book presents the case for using engineered timber with one hundred studies encompassing a wide range of scales, styles and types. Also included is a compendium outlining the benefits of CLT along with the considerations for designing and building in this revolutionary material."

"We often refer to human civilisations by the principal materials they employ, such as the Bronze Age, Iron Age etc. In this vein, the 20th century can be very much called the Concrete Age and it seems very likely that the 21st century will be the Timber Age."

A digital version of the book can be downloaded for free on ThinkWood website here.

View the photo gallery of the book's presentation held at The Building Centre here.

Hermann Kamte, young Cameroonian architect and founder of Hermann Kamte & Associates (HKA), is the driving force behind the project of the innovative 87-metre high Lagos Wooden Tower.

Originally designed as a submission for Metsä Wood's City Above the City competition, Kamte's design looks to tackle the problem of poorly planned construction in many African cities by pushing the boundaries of contemporary architecture.

In the City Above the City competition, participants were invited to suggest solutions for new housing on top of existing urban buildings, using Metsä Wood's Kerto® LVL (laminated veneer lumber) as the main material.

Kamte's highly innovative design used Kerto® LVL to construct a tower on top of an existing concrete building in the heart of Nigeria's capital city, Lagos. Mixed residential spaces, separated by open floors featuring sky gardens and amenities, are shaded and ventilated by a stylised wooden envelope using symbols that reflect Nigerian Yoruba heritage. Remarkably, this experimental building is also developed through natural, recyclable and local material.

Among other awards and nominations, the design project has been shortlisted for the 2017 World Architecture Festival Awards. It was also a winner of the 2017 WAFX Prize in the cultural identity category.

Thanks to pioneering young designers such as Hermann Kamte, more and more of Africa's new architecture is winning widespread acclaim for its innovation and sustainability.

"The Lagos design project has really caught people's attention and highlighted the potential of wood construction in Africa," reports a note from Metsä Wood. "Seeing wood as a valuable and sustainable resource could benefit African society at large, but right now, for African designers and builders, concrete and bricks are far easier to obtain and a lot cheaper than wooden construction products."

"However, there is still potential for this to change. As we raise the profile of timber-based architecture, the demand will grow and wooden building solutions will become cheaper and more accessible."

Construction of the new 84-meter, 24-storey high 'HoHo Tower' in Vienna, Austria - set to be the world's tallest timber building - has been underway for over a year now.

The lower of the two structures is complete (click on the picture to expland) and installation of the initial prefabricated wooden elements is in full progress.

Around 76 percent of the structure will be constructed from wood. Once finished, Hoho Wien will house a hotel, apartments, a restaurant, a wellness centre and offices.

All included, HoHo Vienna comprises five structures with between six and twenty-four floors. The shell construction of the basement extending under the entire development and that of the underground car park have been completed. The solid concrete core is now being built and timber installation is in full swing. Assembly work is scheduled to take one and a half weeks per floor.

The solid timber walls will never be distinguishable as such from the outside, since a moisture barrier will have been applied to each of the individual elements before they leave the factory to protect against weathering.

The tower that forms part of the HoHo Vienna project has one major strength: lots of building parts are prefabricated in the factory where weather conditions can be left out of account. As a result, numerous procedures are no longer necessary on the construction site itself. The HoHo Wien system, which is kept deliberately "simple", stacks up four prefabricated, serial building elements: supports, joist, ceiling panels and facade elements.

In a recent interview - available in full here - Caroline Palfy, Managing Director of the real estate developer Cetus Baudevelopment, illustrates the peculiarities of such a large-volume timber project.

"The preparations and construction with wood are a tricky business, since ready solutions are not forthcoming in all areas," explains Ms Palfy. "It's all about developing new things and using them – and that's what makes this project so exciting."

"I keep getting asked whether our timber resources are jeopardised by the current timber boom in the construction industry. In Austria, forests produce 30 million cubic metres of timber a year, of which 26 million cubic metres are logged. The remaining 4 million cubic metres remain in the forest, continually increasing timber stocks. In other words, 1 cubic metre of wood grows back every second and thus the timber used for the entire HoHo Vienna project will have grown back in our country's forests in only one hour and 17 minutes."

"True to the motto 'It's time to clock off and no one wants to go home', HoHo Vienna caters to all the wishes of a new generation of blue-collar workers, white-collar employees and self-employed. The office of the future breaks completely new ground. New features are brought into league with wood, a traditional material, creating a relaxed and homey atmosphere. That is precisely our vision."

Timbeter develops new app to measure and track logs

Estonian company Timbeter has recently launched a device application that permits users to measure logs quickly and accurately.

The key benefits of Timbeter solution stand in the increased level of measurement accuracy (measurement error ratio is dropping from current 4-5% to 1-1.5% for each timber lot), remarkably quicker measurement and data management process (from 45-60 minutes to 4-5 minutes), grown efficiency (the process of measurement, data entry and development of reports is executed by one person instead of current 2-3 persons).

"As the results of all measurements are digitally recorded by the system (including the picture taken of a pile), Timbeter is about to bring traceability and transparency to measurement processes, promoting competitive, fair and sustainable forest management", explain the app developers.

Timbeter has 3 measuring options: diameter recognition (log-by-log measurement); truckloads measurement and pile measurement. All the measurements are stored in the storage module that offers an up-to-date overview of the raw-material and informative input for production decisions, enabling efficient supply-chain management.

In the storage module customers can customize the assortments, prices and generate measurement reports, supporting quick and efficient reporting between the companies.

Timbeter can also be integrated with internal systems of the company, like CRM, bookkeeping, payroll or ERP.